St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-11-07
JOE HOWARD'S LETTER.

JOE HOWARD'S LETTER.
Graphic Portrayal of Public Feel
ing in the Garden City.
Special to the Globe.
CHICAGO, Nov. 6.-When the man in
the Bible story invited his friends TO a
feast, they forthwith began to make eX-
cuses, and now that the courts of llli
nOis have invited the Chicago news
papers to see seven confessed anarchists
hanged, forthwith begin they to make
excuses and fill their columns with so
be its and peradventures that possibly
it would be better policy to play the
JEFF Davis game on them and leave
them severaly alone. Most ingeniOusly
do they coat the pill of clemency with
suggestions of the ignominy which will
attend the condemned if they are sent
to prison rather than the gallOws. Their
idea is that, although the makers and
throwers of bombs, the killers of men
and manners of others, deserve punish
ment, there are several kinds of punish
ment, and hanging is not the best.
Crystallized into phrase, they say all
over town:
'From the morning after the Hay
market riot, through the trial. as
through subsequent long delays in
reaching a decision in the reviewing
tribunals,
Intelligent Public Sentiment
regarding the anarchists condemned for
the murder of Degan has preserved
marvellous consistency. The opinion
firmly held during the period of public
excitement, as during intervals when
the condemned had passed almost en-
tirely from public notice, approved the
punishment of men who had melted 10
murder in its most horrible form. Even
now that, eighteen months after the
bomb was exploded, the culpritS stand
within a few days of eternity, the Opin-
ion changes, where change is discern
ible, as to the kind of punishment to be
inflicted, not as to the justice of infiict-
ing punishment, in no intelligent and
respectable quarter, is the conduct of
the men justified or excused. No re-
puted citizen thinks of eXalting the
condemned as heroes or of challenging
the patient finding of the courts upon
the law and the evidence, but the con-
victiOn is forced upon some minds,
whereas the seven are condemned
equally to the utmost penalty, there were,
in fact, wide differences between the
CuIpabiIity of the Actors.
There was malice prepense in a
bombmaker like Lingg, but the mere
haranguer like Fielden or an irreSpon-
sible scribbler like Schwab had no mur-
der in his heart. The law puts them all
on plane and condemns them all to the
gallowS, but common sense diScriml-
mates between the chief and the merely
incidental criminals and would not visit
upon the one as full and fearful pen-
atty as upon the other. Minds not in
quiring curiOusly into the relations of
everyone of the seven with the crime in
the Haymarket and having no opinion
upon degrees of guilt feel as the hour
of execution draws nigh that after all
the exaction of the extreme penalty is
question of policy and that while the
courts were right it is proper to present
so important 4 case to an officer clothed
with plenary powers of reprieve,
Communication or Pardon.
and untrammeled in his consideration
of the case by those rules of evidence
which are necessarily applied by judges,
it was for the protection of society that
justice condemned the convictS to die
ANONYMOUSLY. In larger and more
humane view, would it not be desirable
that the governor of Illinois, with like
motive, would deem that they ignomin-
iously live? Early in the week the
whole question will be submitted form
ally to the governor. All that briefly
and temperately is to be said upon the
subject ought TO and no doubt will re-
ceive patient and intelligent attention.
The decision honestly reached should
be Loyalty accepted
In other words, they advise the weak
ening governor that if he will only COM
mute the punishment the papers will
joyfully indorse and cordially sustain
his act. on. 1t would be impossible to
eNaggerate or overestimatc the popular
interest in the matter. | dined this
evening with the family of a leading
factor in affairs. In the company were
the host, his wife and daughters,
prominent capitalist and his daughters
and an artist of world renown. The
host was emphatic in his belief that il
were
Worse Than Folly
TO commute the sentences or in any way
amelioriate the condition Of the con-
demned His wife and daughters made
no pretense of concealing their fear and
apprehension of trouble on the day of
the execution. which they hoped would
never come. The capitalist pursued a
line of argument in lieu with Dion
BOucicault'S nonsense printed in Sat
urday's Sun. He wished the affair was
ended because everybody was going out
of town, and things in general are dull.
and the artist, who CHANGED TO be on
hand the night of the slaughter, and
saw the mangled officers when they
were brought in and subsequently heard
Fielden gloat over the few and wish
there had been more killed and manned,
said he saw no way out of it but the
highway built by the jury and tie